The embattled members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has raised the alarm over a purported plan by the management of the Lagos State University, LASU, Ojo, to terminate the appointment of three of its members at the university.

According to the union, its members penciled for sack are Dr Tony Dansu, Dr Adeolu Oyekan and Dr Oluwafemi Aboderin-Shonibare, who are secretary, assistant secretary and treasurer respectively.

The said their sin were trumped up allegation by the management of exposing a document that unduly backdated the promotion of the incumbent Vice Chancellor, Prof Olarenwaju Fagbohun, from the associate level to full-fledged professor.

Addressing newsmen on Thursday at LASU, the South-West coordinators of ASUU comprising Lagos, Ibadan, Akure and Benin zones, said it was unheard of in what they called a sane society to punish someone on the basis of exposing a wrong doing of another person or institution.

Prof Sowande Olusiji, the Lagos zone coordinator of ASUU and convener of the congress held at LASU yesterday in solidarity with the victimised members, called on the LASU governing council to investigate the allegation of undue backdated professorship of Professor Lanre Fagbohun and not the source of the information as a way to rope the whistleblowers.

He said what should be a concern to the council should be whether the allegation is true or not and then take decision on the outcome either in favour of the whistle-blowers or the person accused.

He, therefore, accused the leadership of attempts to suppress the activities of ASUU members in the university so as to be able to operate with impunity.

“And ASUU can never be caged. We have the rights to association and expression of opinions,” he stressed.

“So, castigating our members for being in possession of documents of any worker in our universities especially in this era of freedom of information shouldn’t have arisen”

He announced that the four zones would embark on a peaceful protest to the governor of Lagos State, who is also the visitor to the university, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, today, to register their grievances on the matter and other displeasure with the happenings in the university.

Reacting to the promotion allegation, the university management said ASUU claims though baseless, were being investigated by the governing council and the union should therefore wait for the outcome and not pre-empt outcome of the investigation.

The University’s Spokesman, Mr Ademola Adekoya, who reacted on behalf of the university, told INDEPENDENT that the university was also interested in probing the source of documents containing the backdating of the alleged promotion to saga.

According to him, the document that ASUU is quoted to have contained the alleged backdated promotion was a classified one and should not be in the public domain.

He therefore said the former registrar, Mr Akinwunmi Lewis, who ASUU alleged of carrying out the promotion exercise unilaterally followed due process on the matter.